Riku Replica 1
by Aria6
Summary: The story of the first Riku Replica. This is set after Kingdom Hearts 2 and will mostly be about original characters although Sora and Riku will appear. Much silliness awaits, enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

_For as long as he could remember, he had been warm and comfortable, ensconced in an artificial womb. Sometimes he opened his eyes, aware yet not awake, and always saw the same pale green light. It was soothing and relaxing and he would drift off again into unawareness._

_Part of him wanted the simple existence to go on forever, but a much larger part was slowly growing restless. This was not what he had been created for. He was not aware enough to consider what he had been created for, but something deep inside kept insisting that he needed to move, needed to act. Needed to go._

_But the green light was so seductive that the need was always smothered and he never awoke. Blank awareness occasionally touched the world, but that was all._

_Until a special day came._

* * *

"Are you SURE this is a good idea?" The nervous Nobody asked his companion. The other, more confident Nobody sighed angrily.

"No. Do you have a better idea? We need something." They were not exactly remnants of Organization 13. Born well after the death of the Organization, they had nonetheless been 'born' in the Land that Never Was. And now they were attempting to raid Maleficent's castle. It wasn't the best strategy for long term survival, but when you got down to it, what did they have to lose? And maybe Organization 13 had left something interesting in the castle. There were certainly enough basements.

They didn't wear the robes of the Organization. That would have been far too identifying. Instead, they wore drab, grey, utilitarian clothing and grey facemasks. It was boring, but given the low profile they were trying to keep boring was probably best.

"Down here." The more confident Nobody picked a direction at random, and they made their way down. "Look for anything out of place."

"This place is a maze." The second Nobody complained. "And what do you mean, out of place?" He sighed and leaned against a wall, against an ornate white symbol set into the white wall. "What-AHHH!" The symbol seemed to sink into the wall and he went with it.

"Hey!" The other Nobody sprang after him. She didn't particularly care about him… she was a Nobody… but even Nobodies don't want to be alone.

The slide they had fallen into seemed to go on forever, but finally dumped them into a room as bright and white as anything else in the castle. But unlike most of it, there was incredibly high tech equipment everywhere. The two Nobodies looked around, amazed by it.

There were computer consoles, strange diagnostics they couldn't understand… and many tubes of clear green liquid. There was nothing in most of them, or odd disturbing things that they didn't want to look too closely at. But one of them had something more.

"A boy?" They both peered at the body in the tube. It was a well shaped boy of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Maybe, maybe twenty, it was hard to be sure. Soft silver hair floated in the liquid, and as they watched his eyes opened. They were green and unaware. The bolder Nobody walked up to the tube, pressing her hand against it, fascinated. Suddenly the green eyes seemed to focus on her and the boy laid his hand against the glass against hers.

"Hey, what do these do?" Wrapped up in the strangely intimate moment, she didn't react to that… until her feet began to feel warm. Glancing down, she saw that she was standing in a circle inlaid into the floor… and it was glowing.

Suddenly worried, she tried to step away but found her feet were locked firmly to the floor. And she couldn't remove her hand from the glass.

"What have you DONE?" She shrieked at her companion, who started violently and backed away from the console he had been tapping at.

"Nothing- oh shit!" The blue light spread, and she yelped, raising one hand to her head and gripping her braids. Emotions suddenly welled up in her heart, but that wasn't right, she didn't HAVE a heart…

_Yes yes yes! Woopah! Free! Free free free!_ Her breathing speeded up as the joy, the amazement; the pure freedom touched her mind. If it was some kind of delusion she didn't want it to end.

The tube abruptly shattered, and the boy was suddenly holding her hand. His eyes fixed on hers for a moment, green on brown. Then he laughed, and she laughed with him. He vanished in a puff of darkness, but she kept laughing, loving every moment of the mirth.

"Oh man, they're going to notice this!" The other Nobody grabbed her and began pulling her out. "Come on, we got to go!" She giggled helplessly as they ran, enjoying the feeling of movement, the air through her hair. It was all so intoxicating, as if she'd never done any of it before. "What's wrong with you?"

"I feel…" She gasped, laughing. "I feel like I have a heart again!" He shot her a startled look, but she didn't care. She knew, somehow, that the emotions she was feeling weren't hers… they were that boys. But she didn't care. It was beautiful and glorious and she never wanted it to end.

* * *

_If they had stayed a little longer, they might have looked at the machines more closely and discovered some intriguing things. None of the data was protected. Since they did not, I will relate it to you._

_The equipment was stolen from Harmony. It was meant for cloning and was used in the Organizations first attempt to create a Riku replica. They soon learned they had made a mistake. In order to avoid the inconvenient problems with the AI systems from Harmony, they stole equipment that had only very basic programming. That meant they needed to create the full program themselves. Clones require information feeds, or what you end up with is a full grown baby of no use to anyone._

_The Chilly Academic did well at creating the basic programming, but Xemnas quickly realized that the whole process was going to take too long. He had underestimated the length of time it would take to grow the clone. It requires two years, minimum… usually closer to three. So the project was abandoned._

_But he saw no need to destroy the project. It would, after all, become useful in a year or two. But active work on the information feed was ceased and everything was declassified. The other Nobodies were free to enter anything into the feed they thought the clone should know._

_And they did. Subjects ranged from music to odd types of pornography. The cloning machines possess a rudimentary AI and attempted to make sense of the various data and interpret what the people feeding it in wanted._

_The result was rather peculiar._

* * *

"It's a beach!" Green eyes glittered brightly as they looked over the sand. It was vaguely familiar, but not really. "Ohhhh water!" The shiny water attracted him instantly, and he laughed, dashing into the waves and splashing the water everywhere.

_I'm alive I'm free I'm ready to DO STUFF!_ Laughing, he twirled and began to dance, singing. It was a wordless song of pure joy, because he simply had more energy than he could contain.

"Hey!" He kept dancing, but spotted the two boys on the shore staring at him. One was a brunette in some interesting clothes… and the other was a silvery haired boy who looked just like him. He suddenly stopped dancing and leapt out of the water. "Who are you?" The brunette demanded, but they both paused as they got a good look at him.

"You're my replica… but that can't be, I killed you." Riku and Sora readied their keyblades as the double laughed and shook his head.

"No no no!" He waved his hand as he spoke, grinning. "I'm not that one. I'm the first Riku replica! I just got let out of my cage." He pressed a finger to his bottom lip in mock thoughtfulness. "I needed to come here first. I think I was SUPPOSED to try to kill you." The two prepared themselves for the onslaught… the replica laughed and pointed at them. "But! I don't want to! I want to… boop you!" With lighting swiftness, he dashed in and poked Riku right on the tip of his nose. "Boop!" He leapt back as Riku swung at him. "And now, I think I'm going to go do something else!" The replica vanished in a puff of darkness, leaving the two Keyblade wielders staring.

"…What just happened?" Sora wondered, and Riku could only shrug, bewildered.

"I don't know. I just know that was nothing like me."


	2. Hickey's and other things

The female Nobody slid easily through the darkness. She had left behind her male companion without a backwards glance. He probably felt differently, but really she owed him nothing. They were Nobodies and they hadn't even known each other long.

She had to find the boy who held her heart. She was giggling and smiling at nothing at all, and while that was grand, it would be better if she was in on the joke. If she was standing beside him as he felt those things. And most of all, she needed to keep him alive.

For the first time in her short existence as a Nobody, she had a real mission and purpose. Nothing was going to hurt her heart.

* * *

"Mmm." The boy in question was busy nomming a corn dog. He hadn't had any money when he left the World that Never Was, but that had been easy to fix with a few lifted wallets and a single card game. Larceny had come to him as easily as breathing and the question of whether or not it was right had never crossed his mind. He would, in fact, have been baffled by the suggestion.

He had found a great fair on the outskirts of a rather sad city, and was vastly enjoying it. And was wondering, vaguely, if he might be able to find a job here. Lifting wallets and card sharking were fun but something warned him that it was a perilous way to try to make a living, no matter how good you were at it.

"So, I was wondering, how do you get a job here?" He brightly asked a drink vendor as he bought a cup of high proof alcohol. She smiled and shrugged. "Seriously, I have talents!"

"Well, if you're serious, you'd apply at the airship. We don't take many people though." She said diplomatically, and he grinned at her.

"Thanks!" He started off, swallowing the liquor easily and smiled at the buzz. People paused to look as he passed by… he was wearing the same outfit as the other Riku-Replica, which was very odd for this place. And he'd already used his cash to set it off in his own way. He was wearing a vest made of knitted pink, strung with dozens of beads. The beads ranged from seed pearls to exquisite glass beads to silver chunks. It suited him perfectly… and looked absolutely bizarre against his black jumpsuit. "Hmm, what's an airship?"

It took him a while to find it, particularly since he paused to look at everything interesting along the way. There were performers with instruments that made his hands itch to touch them, and the music made him grin and put a dance to his step. There were tumblers, fire breathers, tightrope walkers… this fair had everything! And of course, a hundred and one vendors. He found himself captivated by brightly colored scarves, and tore himself away reluctantly. He would have them someday… but not just yet.

"Ah!" The airship, when he finally found it, was quite easy to spot. A great monster of a ship, it was tethered to the ground but floating in the sky. He stared at it, eyes wide. Great propellers beat lazily at the air, and he could tell just from its design that it couldn't fully land. It hadn't been made that way. A great logo of a golden butterfly decorated the front of the ship. He hesitated, then laughed and walked up to the people around it confidently. "Hi! I was wondering if I could get a job with you?" A man with a clipboard looked up at him, bored. He was a young man, but already starting to go bald from what Repliku could see.

"No-" He started, but a young woman with blond hair and black facial markings interrupted with a wicked grin.

"Of course! Just go to the corner over there and put on a performance so we can see what you can do." She pointed at a corner that was dusty and unused. The boy cocked his head to one side, evaluated it for a moment. There was plenty of trash there, and boxes piled up. To someone who knew more about the world, that might have made him suspect something, but the Riku Replica was too young to think of that.

And the debris gave him an idea.

"Okay! Watch and see." He promised and darted off as the girl giggled. The man sighed and shook his head.

"That was cruel." That corner was not so affectionately known as the Amateur Corner, and it was where the fobbed off particularly annoying applicants. Most of them were horrible and the people passing by knew it. A few rotten tomatoes usually convinced them to go away. "He wasn't obnoxious enough for that."

"Oh, come on Darl, it'll be funny." She grinned and watched as events began to unfold, but Darl only shook his head and went back to his work.

Meanwhile, the Riku Replica considered the boxes and metal cans thoughtfully. Then he grinned, and jumped onto them. He clapped his hands together and used magic to make a brief, sharp thunderclap of sound. People passing by started and turned to stare at him.

"Prepare to be amazed by music, magic and tumbling!" He declared with a cocky grin. Some people jeered, but some looked interested. This was new. "So first… the tumbling!" He leapt easily to another box, and then got down to business.

The tumbling was easy for him, and he felt like he was dancing through the air. A bit of jumping through the darkness helped too… corridors of darkness could have really interesting applications if you knew how to do it. And he noted the sounds each box and can made when he landed on it. Finally he leapt down, executing a neat double summersault before landing on his feet and bowing. The crowd applauded and even tossed him some coins, which he scooped up easily.

"And now… the music!" He leapt back up onto the boxes, but instead of making a random racket he purposefully began stomping on them. They made a wonderful beat as he began to sing.

"Hey Darl?" The girl inquired, watching what was happening.

"Yes?" He noted something in his clipboard, and she grinned wickedly again. She was willing to have fun at anyone's expense, and it was his turn.

"You didn't want those boxes for anything, did you?" They were looking distinctly worse for the wear, and she had no idea what was inside them. He looked up and blanched.

"That maniac! What's he doing?"

"Putting on a performance and not a bad one either." She pointed out. From where she was, she could hear the music and it sounded rather good, even with just a bunch of boxes and cans for an instrument. The audience was certainly caught up in it. Swearing, he dropped his clipboard and stormed over to where the boy was performing.

"You lunatic! Get down from there!" He shouted, to the audience's discontent. The Riku Replica paused in his performance, then jumped to the ground before waving at the crowd.

"Sorry everyone, duty calls! Thanks for watching-ow!" The man dragged him away by one ear, and the Riku Replica took it good naturedly. "Hey, I'm not a little kid you know." Darl let him go, and he reached up to rub his ear.

"You idiot, that's our equipment! What possessed you to stomp all over it?" He demanded, and Repliku shrugged.

"I didn't have an instrument." He said reasonably, and the man looked like he was about to blow a blood vessel. The girl giggled and he smiled at her.

"We should take him to Losh, Darl. That was some natural talent. I'm Tambertail, by the way. And before you ask…" She turned around and flirted a large, fluffy cat tail at him. "I'm half Claddask." Ripliku, who hadn't been about to ask, eyed the tail with interest. It was attached to a very nice butt, too. "What's your name?"

"My name?" The Riku Replica started as he realized… he didn't have a name. Riku didn't seem right. It was already taken, and unlike the data creation replica, he had none of the real Riku's memories at all. "Uh… I don't seem to have one."

"You don't remember your name?" Darl seemed dubious again, but Tambertail just grinned.

"Then you're Lunatic, or Luna for short." She grabbed his arm and tucked it into hers. "Come on Luna, I'm taking you to meet the boss." She had a feeling he was going to like this. If they both survived.

* * *

_And that was how the newly named Luna was accepted by a traveling fair group._

_There are two things that you should consider, however. The first is that an airship of that type is very expensive to maintain… very expensive indeed. Most of it was paid for legitimately, since countries often had to make bids to have the fair include their main cities in the tour. Luna had only seen the free entertainments, not the paid for ones… which were truly amazing._

_Still. Sometimes, the traveling troop could venture into realms that were not entirely legal._

_The second thing you should consider is the more interesting aspects of Luna's creation. In addition to all the other information they gave him, every Nobody attempted to add their own fighting style to the data feed. The AI correctly interpreted that the clone it was making was meant to be a warrior. Using the pure magic that had been dumped into it as well as the advanced technology it was already party to, it attempted to duplicate every ability that it had been given recordings of._

_This would have been fatally unstable if the duplicate had been released on the correct time frame. However, the fall of the organization gave the AI the time it needed to condense everything into a neat little package._

_Like a nuclear device._

* * *

"De tar det enda ni gor pa dagarna, ni sitter dar I Ventrilo och spelar DotA… Vi sitter har I venten och spelar lite DotA… I hear you man…" Luna sang softly to himself as he painted a tree.

He was helping to set up the main stage for the newest step of the tour. He'd been provisionally accepted as a general handyman and street busker. It was his jobs to help with anything that needed helping and when he was done, go make some coins and entertain people on the street.

He was still wearing his black and blue jumpsuit with the white skirt thing… he'd decided he liked it… but had gotten rid of the vest in favor of a several scarves wrapped around his waist. The scarves were sequined and beaded, glittering beautifully in all shades of the rainbow. Luna was finding that he LOVED color.

"What on earth are you singing?" Tambertail asked as she jumped down from where she had been fixing the trapezes in place. She caught a trailing rope, swinging down as gracefully as dream. That was her part in the show… she was a trapeze artist. Luna paused in his work, a bit puzzled.

"I don't know actually. Not sure where I heard that. Would you like something else?"

"Please!"

"The sorrows of Sarai the fickle," He intoned seriously, then grinned and began singing. He made it through the first and second verses, detailing Sarai's attributes in obscene detail and was just starting on her activities when Tambertail interrupted him.

"Not that! Don't you know any songs that aren't incomprehensible or filthy?" Luna had to think about that a moment.

"Lots, but I like filthy. Ah, okay…" He thought again, and started to sing a sea chanty. "My name is Captain Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed… most wickedly I did as I sailed…" It was a song about a lot of bloodshed, but satisfied Tambertail. She rather liked bloodshed. "To the execution dock, lay my head upon the block… the laws no more I'll mock when I sail… so take warning, hare and heed to shun bad company or you'll end up just like me…" Tambertail hummed along with him as she kept working, bending over, and he eyed her tail again. It was really a pretty tail. "Would you kill me if I pounced you from behind?" He asked brightly, and she peered between her legs at him.

"Hah! You'd die of exhaustion. I'm too much for you kid." She said with a snort, and he grinned widely.

"Wanna bet? You have no idea what I've got over here." Luna replied brashly, and suddenly she leapt at him, pinning him to the wall and breathing on his lips. He could have avoided her… he was faster… but he didn't want to.

"Prove it." She breathed, wicked amusement in her eyes, and he kissed her. The kiss was rough, and they went back and forth, battling with their tongues. Then she started pulling him to the back of the stage. They were alone for the moment, but the rest of the stage crew was bound to come back from their lunch break soon.

When the crew got back, they were a bit surprised to see Luna and Tambertail stumbling out of the back room, straightening their clothes and sporting bloody scratches. Then someone whistled and someone else laughed.

"Already?" Darl said derisively, shaking his head. "Tambertail, you're such a slut." She huffed and made an obscene gesture.

"You're just jealous." Then she leaned over and planted a kiss on Luna's cheek. He laughed and returned it with interest. "I take it back kid, you're pretty good. We'll have to do that again sometime." She leered at him good naturedly. "When we've got a bit more time to enjoy it." It had been good but a touch fast. Luna leered right back.

"Anytime you want, lovely lady." He meant that with all his heart. Tambertail was wonderfully fun to be around.

* * *

"Hey Riku, you had a good time last night?" Sora asked with a grin, and Riku looked at him, mystified.

"No. Why do you ask?" Sora looked a bit puzzled at Riku's puzzlement.

"Well, you have fresh scratches on your neck and that really looks like a hickey there. And I think that's a bite mark." He pointed to Riku's neck, and Riku reached up, startled.

"I… ow! Where did these come from?" They were certainly fresh and they hurt. But he had no idea where he had gotten them. "I didn't even drink last night." He looked at the dried blood on his fingertips with concern. How had the wounds gotten there?

It was a mystery.


End file.
